


Grand gestures

by stjarna



Series: Season 4 - Coda Challenge [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bus Kids - Freeform, Coda Challenge, Coda Challenge @The FitzSimmons Network, F/M, Fitz only mentioned, Friendship, Friendship!Skimmons, Gen, Post-Episode: s04e06 The Good Samaritan, Spoilers, Tumblr, Tumblr: thefitzsimmonsnetwork, mini-hiatus challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8496307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna
Summary: Written for The "Season 4, Episode 6 - The Good Samaritan" Coda Challenge organized by The Fitzsimmons Network and for the Mini-Hiatus Challenge organized by overworkedunderwhelmed on Tumblr.Summary in the Notes section, as additional spoiler protection for those who have not seen the episode.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: Daisy worries about her best friend, who is desperate to figure out what happened to Coulson, Robbie Reyes, and of course Fitz. She gets a taste of her own medicine when Jemma refuses her help. But when Jemma disappears herself one night, Daisy is determined to get to the bottom of things, and she might be surprised by what she finds.
> 
> Thanks once again to the wonderful dilkirani for the beta.

She’s sitting on the couch in the common room, staring at the air in front of her.

“Hey,” Daisy says quietly, her extended hand holding a cup of tea.

Jemma accepts the cup absentmindedly and takes a sip. “Chamomile?”

“I thought it’d be soothing or some shit,” Daisy mutters and sits down next to her.

“Thanks,” Jemma replies quietly.

They sit in silence, while the last few hours replay in Jemma’s mind.

* * *

She had returned from her _top-secret, very classified, for-your-eyes-and-ears-only assignment_ ready to give the new Director a piece of her mind about the fact that he had apparently let Nadeer blackmail him into offering her _as the leading scientific authority on Inhumans_ to try and reverse what was happening to Nadeer’s brother. As if she even could.

It had been a long day of convincing Nadeer that there was _nothing_ she could do at this point, and the forced promise that she would work on _something_ , whatever that might be.

But the second she returned to the Playground, Jemma knew something was wrong. The air felt heavy. An unexplainable darkness surrounded the agents moving through the corridors.

And then May and Mace were waiting for her, Daisy and Mack slightly behind them. And Mace looked… small. Jemma couldn’t describe it any better, but someone had taken him down a notch or two.

Her money was on May, considering that Coulson was nowhere to be seen.

Then it hit her: Coulson was nowhere to be seen. And neither was Fitz. And her heart stopped.

Mace mumbled something about being “terribly sorry,” but May immediately cut him off, telling Jemma what had happened at the facility instead. They said that Coulson, Robbie Reyes, and Fitz had vanished. They thought they were dead. Jemma instantly rejected that theory. It was utter nonsense. They were dealing with science beyond anything they had ever encountered. There were simply too many possibilities to consider _death_ the only option. They agreed with her, but their eyes told a different story.

She headed straight for the lab to look at the data the team had gathered from the incident. She channeled the pain burning in her chest into determination.

And then one of Mace’s goons returned her phone to her, which they had confiscated before taking her to Nadeer. She heard his messages; heard the shift in his voice from slightly frustrated, to concerned, panicked, and pleading. With each message, her pain and anger grew, until it spilled over; until she stormed past his guards and into his office.

She slammed her fists into his indestructible chest, screaming that she had asked him to let her tie up some loose ends. Mace didn’t say a word. Not when she hit him, not when May rushed into the room and pulled her away from him, not when she sank into May’s arms and allowed her tears to fall freely.

* * *

“Hey, you know,” Daisy’s voice makes Jemma snap out of her train of thought, “if you want, I could stay with you tonight. You know, keep you company.”

Jemma lets out a small involuntary laugh.

“What?” Daisy asks.

Jemma grimaces. “I believe that’s exactly what _I_ offered when…”

Daisy nods, her sad eyes avoiding Jemma’s. “And I declined that offer,” she says, not letting Jemma finish her sentence.

“That’s a polite way of putting it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jemma says. “It means you’ll understand if I decline your offer now. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Daisy replies, “but if you change your mind...”

“Thank you,” Jemma whispers, forcing a smile.

Quietly she continues sipping her tea.

He wasn’t dead. There were too many other options. It was simply a matter of figuring out the science. She didn’t _need_ company, because she wasn’t grieving. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been more than a month. Daisy, Mack, and May had been chasing every trace of Eli Morrow and anything remotely suspected to be related to the occurrences at Roxxon lab.

In the meantime, Jemma and Radcliffe, with his assistant Aida, were working feverishly on various possible scientific explanations. Both seemed determined that Coulson, Reyes, and Fitz were still alive in one form or another, whatever the fuck that meant.

Daisy noticed how quickly May dismissed the two scientists’ suggestion that _maybe_ the Darkhold was still somewhere in that facility. A little too quickly. She could sense something was up. May knew something about the Darkhold, but she sure as hell wasn’t gonna share that intel. Daisy knew her mentor better than to keep prodding her about it. Using the Darkhold was not an option. Jemma and Radcliffe would have to come up with a different solution.

Jemma had been holed up in the lab every waking hour. It reminded Daisy oh-too-well of Fitz in his desperate attempts to find Jemma after the monolith took her. The same unwillingness to accept death as an option. The same unwillingness to leave the lab, unless it was to follow some kind of trail. The same unwillingness to talk.

But who was she to judge? She hadn’t been willing to talk either.

Jemma lost weight. How it was even possible for her to get any thinner was beyond Daisy’s understanding. She looked so tired. So pale. Her strength dwindled with every day that didn’t bring the answers she was hoping for.

Daisy tried to check on her every evening. Brought her tea, chocolate, soup. They talked, but _never_ about what had happened, _never_ about Fitz. It was about Daisy’s missions, about Elena visiting the base, about May having de facto taken over Mace’s duties (except in front of the press), but _never_ about anything that directly affected Jemma. In fact, Daisy was the one forced to do most of the talking.

It pained Daisy to get a taste of her own medicine, and yet, it was also strangely healing.

* * *

It is later than usual when Daisy returns to the Playground, and yet she can’t resist the urge to check on Jemma, even just to peek into the room to see if she’s sleeping.

_Please, let her be sleeping_. _She needs sleep,_ Daisy pleads as she silently opens the door, like the good little spy she has become. She gives her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness in the room. Then she switches on the lights. Empty. The bed is still made.

Daisy heads to the lab, convinced she’ll find Jemma there, following yet another theory. She’s determined to give the English scientist a piece of her mind. _Go the fuck to sleep. You can’t figure out anything if your brain stops working due to exhaustion!_ But the lab is dark. Empty like her room.

Daisy checks the usual locations: common room, kitchen, gym, med bay. Finally she heads back to Fitzsimmons’ room, thinking maybe she had caught Jemma while she was getting ready in the bathroom.

But the room is still empty when she returns. Daisy looks around. Something is different. Why did it look so barren? Then it hits her.


	3. Chapter 3

A tiny quake, weak enough not to cause her any additional injuries, is all Daisy needs to open the locked door. Slowly she pushes it to peek inside. For a moment, she thinks she may have broken into the wrong apartment.

There are mounted light fixtures on the wall that Daisy’s sure weren’t there previously. They’re dimmed but lit. She takes a step inside. Boxes of varying sizes—some clearly containing furniture—are stacked on one side of the room and on the kitchen counter. It smells of fresh paint, although Daisy can’t make out the new color. Quietly she moves through the living room. Cans of paint with neatly cleaned but nonetheless used brushes and paint rollers in a bucket next to them. An open toolbox with a power drill. The bedroom door is partially open. A nightlight is plugged into the wall.

Daisy remembers how Jemma told her that ever since Maveth she needed just a bit of light at all times. The thought of constant darkness still frightened her. Silently, Daisy opens the door wide enough to look inside. Jemma’s dark figure is lying on the hardwood floor, her knees pulled up slightly, covered with only a thin blanket. The faint shimmer of the nightlight is bright enough to illuminate her sleeping face. Even though she is sleeping, she looks restless. Daisy wonders if she looks the same when she’s asleep only to be kept awake inside her mind by the nightmares that haunt her.

She walks up to Jemma and lies down beside her. Her eyes well up at the sight of her best friend, who is as broken as herself. Intuitively, her hand reaches for Jemma’s face and gently strokes her cheek.

“Shit,” Daisy says quietly, when Jemma’s eyes flutter open.

“Daisy?” Jemma mumbles sleepily.

“Sorry,” Daisy replies and sits up, crossing her legs. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What are you doing here?” Jemma asks in confusion, pushing herself halfway to sitting.

“I got a bit worried when you weren’t in your room … or anywhere else at the Playground, for that matter.”

“How did you find me?”

“Well, first I figured that the gigantic space picture you guys have in your bunk didn’t take itself for a walk,” Daisy explains. “And then… I tracked your phone to confirm my theory.”

“Of course,” is Jemma’s only reply, smiling sadly but gratefully. She gets up and walks to the door to turn on the lights. Daisy squints when the sudden brightness hits her eyes. She notices the framed image leaning against the wall next to the door, and Jemma’s eyes follow Daisy’s stare.

“How did you get it here?” Daisy asks, deciding to get to **_Why_** _did you get it here?_ later.

“I made sure to tell the taxi company to send a vehicle with sufficient trunk space,” Jemma replies as if it were obvious.

“And all the stuff in the living room?” Daisy continues her concerned interrogation. “I mean… some of those boxes seem a bit beyond taxi trunk capacity.”

“There’s this handy thing called delivery,” Jemma replies snarkily. “You may have heard of it. A lot of places offer it these days.”

“Fair enough,” Daisy admits, relieved that some of Jemma’s humor had still survived. “But you actually need to be _there_ when delivery people come to drop stuff off. You’ve been spending every waking hour at the Playground. This isn’t pizza. These guys usually only deliver during the day.”

“Doris has been very helpful,” Jemma replies matter-of-factly.

“Who?”

“Doris. Our neighbor. Lovely old lady. Looking very much forward to having a young couple bring some life into this place.” Her last words make Jemma choke up, but the stubborn English woman, who prides herself on remaining calm and unemotional in the most dire situations, recovers quickly.

“You gave her a key?” Daisy asks, surprised.

“I ran a full background check on her first, of course,” Jemma replies sternly. “Do you think I’m some kind of idiot?”

Daisy sighs and gets up from the floor, slowly walking towards her best friend. “Jemma, what are you doing here?”

Jemma’s eyes well up. “I’m getting it ready for him,” she says, before covering her mouth with her shaking hand, her knees notably buckling. Daisy quickly closes the gap between them and pulls Jemma into a tight hug, trying to keep her composure while Jemma’s body crumples in her arms.

They just stand there. Daisy doesn’t care for how long. She doesn’t say a word, just holds Jemma until her sobbing slowly subsides. Carefully, Daisy breaks the embrace and uses her thumb to gently wipe away Jemma’s tears. A few last pearls of water escape her friend’s sad and broken brown eyes.

“You’ve got some tea in this place?” Daisy asks. “I’ve heard it makes everything better.”

Jemma chuckles bitterly and nods.

Gently, Daisy nudges Jemma out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen.

A little later, both with a steaming cup of tea in hand, they sit down on the thin blanket, which they’ve pulled out of the bedroom. The dimmed wall fixtures bathe the room in a warm gentle light.

Daisy waits. She knows those tears have opened something, but she also knows it has to be on Jemma’s terms.

Daisy lets her eyes wander across the room to fill the idle silence.

“I couldn’t fall asleep in our bed,” Jemma admits finally. “It was so big and empty… And I had brought it up in that _stupid_ fight we had. How we were supposed to share everything like we shared a bed… and how he’d been lying next to me keeping things from me.” She rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand. “And now I _wish_ he was lying there again… even if he--” She stops mid-sentence. “It became unbearable, Daisy,” she whimpers, “the emptiness.”

“What did Fitz keep from you?” Daisy asks curiously.

“Aida.”  
  
“You’re jealous of Radcliffe’s assistant?” Daisy says, surprised. “I mean, she’s kinda hot, I guess, but we’re talking about a guy who’s been in love with you for… I don’t know… _forever_ … without even realizing it at first, because—man—you guys can be so slow sometimes when it comes to stuff like that.” She pauses. “Fitz _willingly_ risked his life more than once to try and save you, Jemma.” Daisy falls silent, as her own words remind her so painfully of… But that doesn’t matter right now. She pushes her own feelings aside to refocus on Jemma. “I _really_ don’t think you have any reason to be jealous of Aida… or _anyone_ for that matter.”

“No,” Jemma replies, “it wasn’t about her beauty.”

“Then what?”

Jemma sighs. “Ugh. I can’t… I shouldn’t…” Then the look in her eyes suddenly changes. “Oh, what the hell. It doesn’t really matter now anyway. I might as well tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“Aida is… not human.”

“ _In_ human?” It’s the only thing Daisy can come up with.

“She’s an android,” Jemma clarifies.

“No way,” Daisy exclaims, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes,” Jemma continues, “a very, _very_ sophisticated android, obviously, that Radcliffe developed and Fitz helped out with and… I mean it’s really quite _brilliant_ and _fascinating_. It even fooled _May_ , so… I mean… But Fitz kept it from me… because he wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t have to reveal it to Mace because of the lie detection tests. I understand that… he wanted to protect both the project _and_ my professional reputation and position… but… he kept it from me and it… _hurt_ … and we had an argument… and it was the last time we spoke.”   
  
Her breath stutters as she fights back more tears. “And now he’s _gone_ and I might never see him again and he may have _died_ thinking that I was angry with him, that maybe I didn’t love him, that maybe…”

“Hey, hey, hey, slow down there!” Daisy tries to stop her friend. “First of all: argument or not, Fitz _knows_ you love him. ‘Cause if he doesn’t then he’s a fucking idiot, and well, that’s _not_ the Fitz _I_ know… Dork. _Maybe_! But _not_ an idiot.”

She’s relieved that the last comment gets a hint of a chuckle from Jemma.

“And he’s _not_ dead,” Daisy continues. “Remember? I mean you and Radcliffe have cited like _a billion_ possibilities of what could have happened to Fitz and the others.”

“Well, _billion_ might be a bit exaggerated,” Jemma interjects but Daisy ignores it.

“And maybe I didn’t understand _squat_ of your sciency yippity-yap, but I _did_ understand that _death_ wasn’t really that high on your list of possibilities. So! You’ll get them back! You’ll get _him_ back! And then you’ll talk, and make up, and have mind-blowing make-up sex.”

_Finally_ , Daisy thinks, _an actual laugh_.

But a fresh, heavy blanket of silence quickly covers the brief light moment.

“So, you’ve been coming here every night? I check on you every evening… and then you sneak off the base and come here because you can’t sleep?” Daisy breaks the invisible wall when it becomes too much for her to bear. She makes sure to leave judgment out of her voice. Leaves only room for concern, for the desire to understand.

Jemma nods. “Not every night… but more and more frequently, yes… The photo of the exterior showed up on my phone a few weeks ago when I was scrolling through pictures, and… I don’t know…” She shrugs her shoulders. “I just started coming here, started sleeping here.”

“On the floor?”

“The bed doesn’t arrive until Friday,” Jemma replies matter-of-factly.

“Right,” Daisy says. “Looks like you did a bit more than just come here and sleep though…”

“Well, I couldn’t always sleep here either. So I started ordering furniture, installed the lights, painted the walls—“

“Met Doris?” Daisy interjects.

“Yes,” Jemma confirms. “I met her one morning when I was heading back to the base before anyone noticed I was gone... She’s an early bird.”

“But why, Jemma?” Daisy asks. “I get the not being able to sleep at the base thing. But what do you mean, you’re getting it ready for him? Why get it ready for him _right now_? Why not wait until you can do it _together_?”

Jemma sighs. “Did Fitz tell you that he kept the dinner reservation he made for the entire time I was on Maveth?”

“Really?” Daisy asks surprised, although she doesn’t quite understand the sudden change in topic.

“Yes,” Jemma confirms, nodding sadly. “Six months.” She takes a deep breath. “He said he did it as a reminder, as a promise to me… _and_ himself.”

“Hmm,” Daisy mumbles, unsure of what else to say.

“And then—when we finally went there—he had rented out the _entire_ restaurant, so that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed,” Jemma continues.

“The _entire_ place? That sounds like something from the movies,” Daisy comments. “How the fuck did he even do that?”

“He never told me,” Jemma replies, laughing briefly. “It probably cost him a small fortune.” Her eyes flutter, and Daisy notices that the watery shimmer of tears has returned. “And _maybe_ it was a bit over the top, but it was also wonderful, and perfect, and romantic, and…” She stops, inhaling deeply. “And then I broke down and started crying because it triggered a memory of Will—whom he didn’t even know about then—and I felt like I ruined it all, and I felt so guilty, and I tried to apologize and Fitz… he wouldn’t have any of it… he said it was perfect. He said taking me out was supposed to be something nice for _me_ , that he didn’t care where we were, as long as we were _together_ , as long as he had his best friend by his side again.”

Tears begin streaming down Jemma’s face, and she sets down the cup she had been holding onto like a safety buoy, pressing the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. Daisy waits, quietly, until Jemma has calmed down again.

Jemma takes one final deep breath, before picking up her story. “He kept the reservation as a promise that our date _would_ happen… and he wanted it to be _perfect_ when it happened… he planned it all out… and _I_ did the same thing on Maveth for the longest time. Imagined where he’d take me, if he’d pull out the chair for me… little things.”

She smiles sadly. “And when I came here the first time… I didn’t even quite understand _why_ I had come… I was so overwhelmed, and… he…” She exhales sharply. “He hasn’t even _seen_ it yet. Not even pictures.” She bites her lower lip. “It hurt so badly.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, and they shine more confidently when she reopens them. “Then I realized that this was _my_ reminder, _my_ promise not to give up on _him_ , like he never gave up on _me_ … And—I don’t know—I keep imagining that maybe wherever he is, maybe to keep his mind occupied, he imagines our new place like I imagined our dinner.”

Her eyes are fixed on Daisy’s. “I know he is somewhere,” Jemma says and nods. “I can feel it. And—rest assured, Daisy, despite my little breakdown earlier—I _won’t_ give up and I’ll figure out how to bring him back… and…” She sighs, “ _when_ he comes back, I want our apartment to be ready. I want to bring him here and show him our _home_ , our _escape_.”

“You don’t think he’d want to have a say in the furniture selection?” Daisy asks. “I mean, this is a bit bigger and more long-term than a dinner reservation.”

“Just stick to the list we made, and the budget, and make sure the bed is big and comfy. I trust you with everything else,” Jemma says in a deep voice, doing a terrible job imitating Fitz’s accent. “Those were his words when we started looking at places.”

Daisy chuckles.

“And part of me wants it to be _perfect_ ,” Jemma admits. “Like his grand romantic gesture… but the other half of me…” She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t _care_ if the tiles in the bathroom are still loose, or if the seal on the living room window isn’t quite tight.” She looks at Daisy. “All I want is for him to be _here_ , with _me_. Even if it _isn’t_ perfect.”

Daisy gets the feeling that the last statement refers to more than just the state of their apartment.

“Well,” Daisy says, “how about we try to get a couple more hours of sleep, and once the sun’s out, we call Mack to do the heavy lifting and start putting together some of this stuff?”

Jemma nods, her smile _almost_ looking more happy than sad. “Could we start by hanging up the picture?” she asks. “It’s his most prized possession… something magnificent.”


End file.
